Hydrodynamic cavitation is a major phase change
phenomena that can occur with a sudden decrease in the local static
pressure within a fluid. The emergence of microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) and high-speed microfluidic devices have attracted
considerable attention with implementations in many fields
including cavitation applications. In a new study now on Nature:
Microsystems and Nanoengineering, Farzad Rokhsar Talabazar and
colleagues in Istanbul Turkey, Sweden and Switzerland proposed a
new generation of cavitation-on-a-chip devices with eight parallel
structured microchannels. The team used water and a poly vinyl
alcohol (PVA) microbubble suspension as the working fluids in the
device. The features of the next-generation cavitation-on-a-chip
instrument have applications across microfluidic or organ-on-a-chip
devices for integrated drug release and tissue-engineering
applications.
